IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/een/camaaa/2025-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Personal Inflation Rates in the Euro Area

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Marencak
  • Giang Nghiem

Abstract

Using granular household-level spending data from the ECB Consumer Expectations Survey, we document new stylized facts on the heterogeneity of personally realized inflation across different inflation regimes in the euro area. During the period of low inflation (April 2020 – April 2021) and the period of sticky inflation (January 2024 – October 2024), homeowners, high-income households, and older individuals experienced lower inflation. However, during the inflation surge (July 2021 – October 2023), this pattern reversed as rising energy and food prices disproportionately affected these groups, outweighing their lower spending shares in these categories. Personally experienced inflation accounts for a significant share of the variation in inflation perceptions, inflation expectations, and broader macroeconomic expectations, including personal income expectations. Moreover, these relationships differ notably across inflation regimes.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Marencak & Giang Nghiem, 2025. "Personal Inflation Rates in the Euro Area," CAMA Working Papers 2025-17, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2025-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/2025-04/17_2025_Marencak_Nghiem.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier Jaravel, 2021. "Inflation Inequality: Measurement, Causes, and Policy Implications," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 599-629, August.
    2. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Is the Phillips Curve Alive and Well after All? Inflation Expectations and the Missing Disinflation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 197-232, January.
    3. Ampudia, Miguel & Ehrmann, Michael & Strasser, Georg, 2024. "Shopping behavior and the effect of monetary policy on inflation heterogeneity along the income distribution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    4. Kukk, Merike & Toczynski, Jan & Basten, Christoph, 2025. "Beyond the headline: How personal exposure to inflation shapes the financial choices of households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. D'Acunto, Francesco & Charalambakis, Evangelos & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff & Meyer, Justus & Weber, Michael, 2024. "Household Inflation Expectations: An Overview of Recent Insights for Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 19167, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff, 2022. "Household spending and fiscal support during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a new consumer survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(S), pages 1-14.
    7. Michael Weber & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2023. "The Expected, Perceived, and Realized Inflation of US Households Before and During the COVID19 Pandemic," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 326-368, March.
    8. Bańkowska, Katarzyna & Borlescu, Ana Maria & Charalambakis, Evangelos & Dias Da Silva, António & Di Laurea, Davide & Dossche, Maarten & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Honkkila, Juha & Kennedy, Neale & Kenny,, 2021. "ECB Consumer Expectations Survey: an overview and first evaluation," Occasional Paper Series 287, European Central Bank.
    9. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Learning from Inflation Experiences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 53-87.
    10. Marenčák, Michal & Nghiem, Giang, 2025. "Elasticity of intertemporal substitution in the euro area," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    11. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff, 2022. "Household spending and fiscal support during the pandemic – the role of public perceptions," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 94.
    12. Francesco D’Acunto & Ulrike Malmendier & Juan Ospina & Michael Weber, 2021. "Exposure to Grocery Prices and Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(5), pages 1615-1639.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kukk, Merike & Toczynski, Jan & Basten, Christoph, 2025. "Beyond the headline: How personal exposure to inflation shapes the financial choices of households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    2. Jung, Alexander & Mongelli, Francesco Paolo, 2025. "Central bank communication with non-experts: insights from a randomized field experiment," Working Paper Series 3103, European Central Bank.
    3. Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2023. "Energy prices and inflation expectations: Evidence from households and firms," Discussion Papers 28/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Viral V. Acharya & Matteo Crosignani & Tim Eisert & Christian Eufinger, 2023. "How Do Supply Shocks to Inflation Generalize? Evidence from the Pandemic Era in Europe," NBER Working Papers 31790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Go Fujii & Shogo Nakano & Kosuke Takatomi, 2025. "Households' Medium- to Long-Term Inflation Expectations Formation: The Role of Past Experience and Inflation Regimes," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 25-E-6, Bank of Japan.
    6. Francesco D'Acunto & Fiorella De Fiore & Damiano Sandri & Michael Weber, 2025. "A global survey of household perceptions and expectations," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    7. Erwan Gautier & Jérémi Montornès, 2025. "Measuring Households' Inflation Expectations in the Euro Area: The Effect of Panel Conditioning," Working papers 1007, Banque de France.
    8. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Kenny, Geoff & Meyer, Justus & van Rooij, Maarten, 2025. "How do rising temperatures affect inflation expectations?," Working Paper Series 3132, European Central Bank.
    9. Michael Weber & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2023. "The Expected, Perceived, and Realized Inflation of US Households Before and During the COVID19 Pandemic," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 326-368, March.
    10. Michael Ehrmann, 2024. "Trust in Central Banks," RBA Annual Conference Papers acp2024-04, Reserve Bank of Australia, revised May 2025.
    11. DiGiuseppe, Matthew & Garriga, Ana Carolina & Kern, Andreas, 2025. "Partisan Bias in Inflation Expectations," MPRA Paper 124391, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Saroj Bhattarai & Arpita Chatterjee & Gautham Udupa, 2024. "Food, Fuel, and Facts: Distributional Effects of Global Price Shocks," Discussion Papers 2024-03, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    13. Eleonora Granziera & Vegard H. Larsen & Greta Meggiorini & Leonardo Melosi, 2025. "Speaking Of Inflation: The Influence Of Fed Speeches On Expectations," Working Papers No 07/2025, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    14. Sarantis Tsiaplias, 2024. "Inflation as a 'bad', heuristics and aggregate shocks: New evidence on expectation formation," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2024n03, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    15. Vedanta Dhamija & Ricardo Nunes & Roshni Tara, 2023. "House Price Expectations and Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Survey Data," Discussion Papers 2318, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    16. Couture, Cody & Owen, Ann L., 2022. "Police-Involved Killings and the Black-White Gap in Economic Expectations," MPRA Paper 115663, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Dietrich, Alexander M., 2024. "Consumption categories, household attention, and inflation expectations: Implications for optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    18. Pathak Chalise, Prayash, 2025. "Household-Level Food Price Inflation Heterogeneity: Evidence and Insights from the U.S. Consumer Panel Data (2013-2023)," 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO 360870, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Nikoleta Anesti & Vania Esady & Matthew Naylor, 2024. "Food prices matter most: Sensitive household inflation expectations," Discussion Papers 2434, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2025-17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cama Admin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.